Patrick Ireland

Running Time

50 minutes

Status

Delivered

Financiers

IFB

Photography

Paddy Jordan

Director

Sé Merry Doyle

Editor

Sé Merry Doyle

Producer

Vanessa Gildea, Martin Durac

On the 20th May 2009, the 80 year old artist Brian O'Doherty came back to Ireland from New York to kill and bury his alter ego Patrick Ireland on the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art in a resonant and emotional ceremony attended by over 500 people.
Patrick Ireland had been created over 35 years previous as a symbolic gesture of protest at the British military presence in Northern Ireland. At that time the artist vowed he would stay in the character of Patrick Ireland for as long as it took for the British Army to leave Ireland and for civil rights to be ensured for all. He felt that as an expatriate, the only thing he could offer was a name and that this name would represent his bond with and empathy towards the country in which he no longer lived.
The film uncovers the events surrounding the extraordinary burial of Patrick Ireland.